Lamb & Bear: Designing a children’s fashion brand

“We wanted the animals to be sophisticated, yet childlike without being childish.”

There’s a beautiful story behind the development of our brand identity for online children’s fashion label, Lamb & Bear.

Fashion designer and mummy blogger, Alex Pearce, developed the fun range of toddler leggings, headbands and blankets after having her own children. Her unique prints, based on photos of animals that she’s taken during family days out, are fun, bold and full of life.

The branding is primarily based on the lettering for ‘Lamb & Bear’ which we commissioned illustrator, Jessie Ford, to draw. She was the perfect choice as she is particularly good at unusual hand-drawn lettering in an illustrative style.

Jessie has given the ‘Lamb’ and ‘Bear’ its own distinct look without them having a completely separate identity. This is then expanded within the secondary element of the animal drawings, which were created in the studio. We wanted the animals to be sophisticated, yet childlike without being childish.

When it came to drawing the animals, part of the approach was in knowing what to leave out as much as what to put in - a common element within any design project.

As the clothing is unisex, we chose gender neutral greens and yellows to represent the brand, reflecting a fresh and spring-like element. These colours also relate to the clothing collection which is predominantly bright and bold.

The lettering and animal drawings have been designed to stand on their own, or to be used together. For instance, 'Lamb & Bear' appears on the front of the swing tags, with the animals on the reverse.

Both the swing tags and postcards are printed on textured paper to add a tactile and quality feel to the brand.

If you’d like to know more about how we created this design, please get in touch.